Our story from the Hebrew scriptures is full of important people. There is Naaman, an army commander, and his boss, the King of Aram. There’s also the king of
There is a young slave, an Israelite girl captured during a military action and pressed into the service of the Naaman’s wife. She is only a child, yet she looks at Naaman with compassion, watching as he suffers from a deadly disease. She has no right to speak at all, yet because of her heart, she does. Her suggestion is impossible – that Naaman should seek help from a prophet who belongs to the enemy.
But Naaman is desperate, so he takes the suggestion to his king, who says, “Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I’ll send a letter to my enemy the king of
Off Naaman treks, taking with him “ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.” Obviously he assumes this healing will be an expensive affair.
The king of
Enter another anonymous servant, this time a messenger from the prophet Elisha, who has heard about the strange situation. His messenger meets Naaman in the courtyard and says, “Elisha’s not coming out and you shouldn’t bother to come in. Just go and bathe yourself in the
Now it is Naaman’s turn to throw a temper tantrum. There are beautiful, clear-running rivers in his homeland. Why should he come into enemy territory and bathe in some muddy ditch? He came to see a prophet – not a servant. He brought money. He expected prophet-like behavior – incantations, the waving of arms, the burning of incense at the very least.
Yet again, it is the servants who save the day. “What have you got to lose?” they ask. Indeed. So Naaman bathes in the
It is the story of a miracle, certainly. It is a story about how God can and will act, despite the plans of earthly powers, and sometimes even through them. It is a story of God’s faithful people, people without earthly power and authority who are yet still willing to do God’s will, in all sorts of times and places.
Our reading from Luke is also a story about anonymous people charged with doing God’s will. Jesus sent out seventy of his followers with the mission to proclaim to all they met: “the
It is always worth paying attention to numbers when they crop up in our readings. Our scriptures were written in a time when numbers had great significance. In this case the number seventy reflects back to the Hebrew scriptures, where it is the number of elders chosen in
Jesus’ followers are sent – without shoes, food, or money, “like lambs in the midst of wolves.” Their mission: to carry God’s healing and peace to all the nations, indeed, to the ends of the earth.
As the baptized members of the Body of Christ in our own day, this mission to carry healing and peace to the ends of the earth is now ours.
But you already know this. It is in the Catechism on p. 855 of the Prayer Book.
“What is the mission of the Church?
The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” To restore unity, to heal, to reconcile.
It’s in our baptismal covenant, which we renew on a regular basis.
“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being? And the answer is: “I will, with God’s help.”
We are the descendants of those servants in
“
We are called to name the presence of the
I cannot call myself a missionary without remembering my youth, for I was raised in a church that took mission work very seriously. That mandate stemmed from the theological understandings that dominated the Western world and the church – particularly the Protestant church around the beginning of the twentieth century. I have an essay, written by my grandmother on the occasion of her graduation from high school in 1899. In that document, she writes what she has been taught both in school and in church: that the
I’ve always said that change within the church is rather like turning an ocean liner – it happens very, very slowly. It has taken another one hundred years of biblical study and theological hard work for us to understand that it must be people – not nations – that take up that mission. Part of the past confusion, of course, stems from the relationship of God with the people of
In fact, in the centuries since the creation of that covenant, the relationship between religions and nationalities has become increasingly complex. There is a huge difference between the kingdoms of the world and the
We live in a different reality from the world of the early twentieth century. Our reality is changing so fast the generations can hardly keep up. My grandmother, in that long-ago essay, could point to the six or seven inventions that had created enormous change in her culture. Since then, so many new things have come along, that my grandchildren and I hardly speak the same language. They think a phone (and they NEVER use the word “telephone”) is an instrument of communication operated by thumbs. If I make the mistake of calling them, instead of texting, they will eventually answer – but I can tell it’s not something they do often.
If the one hundred years since my grandmother was a girl have seen change, imagine the differences between today and this same day 234 years ago. On this, our national birthday, we acknowledge the truth that our founders were amazing human beings, filled with the grace to imagine a nation dedicated to freedom rather than one established by possession. Even as our founding document acknowledges the possibility of war, it also holds forward the intent of peace. That willingness to live with ambiguity makes us very different from most of the other nations in the world.
The documents and records of our history make it plain that those who imagined our nation held peace in high esteem. They were also clearly men and women of God, people whose spiritual lives undergirded everything they said and did.
But we should be accurate and remember this is not a nation founded on religion. It is, rather, a nation founded on freedom of religion. Our founders were people of deep faith, but they did not all express that faith in the same way. One of the first casualties of the American Revolution was the Church of England on these American shores. By definition it could not remain as it was. That Church was established and bounded by the government in
In our celebrations this day, we give thanks for those who imagined this nation of ours, for their faith, and their courage. We give thanks for the gift of freedom and for those who have enabled it to continue. Having offered our prayers of thanksgiving, we remember the slave girl who had the courage to speak truth in the land of her enemy. We remember the seventy who went willingly even to places where they were not welcome. Having remembered, we come to this table with gratitude and compassion, and we leave in peace and the spirit of healing and reconciliation, to go forth into our world in the name of Christ. Amen.